TELEVISION

TELEVISION; Richard Chamberlain's Mini-Series Mastery

By ALJEAN HARMETZ

Published: May 1, 1988

HOLLYWOOD—
The king of the mini-series is tired and yearning for his beach house in Hawaii. ''I don't handle complexity very well,'' Richard Chamberlain says. ''I'm very simple-minded. It's so simple in Hawaii -watching the sunset is the big event of the day.''

Even though he is sitting in a restaurant a few blocks from his Beverly Hills home, he has reason to be tired. For the last eight years he has been traveling, moving from one exotic location to another as the lean-jawed hero of one mini-series after another: ''Centennial,'' ''Shogun,'' ''The Thorn Birds,'' ''Wallenberg,'' ''Dream West'' and now a four-hour series carved from Robert Ludlum's novel ''The Bourne Identity.'' This suspense thriller, an unusual subject for the mini-series genre, will be shown on ABC next Sunday night at 9, with the conclusion the following evening.

From the English sailor Blackthorne washed up on the beach of 17th-century Japan in ''Shogun'' to the amnesia victim Jason Bourne washed up on the beach in the south of France in 1988 in ''The Bourne Identity,'' Richard Chamberlain has become the Robert Redford of the living room, finding a stardom in prime time that has eluded him on the silver screen.

That no other actor has managed to push Mr. Chamberlain off the top of the mini-series hill is not accidental. Although a good actor is a good actor whether he's making a movie-of-the-week for television or a $30 million epic for Academy Award consideration, performing in a mini-series makes specific demands.

''You need an actor who can maintain a character over a long period of time,'' says David Wolper, the executive producer of ''Roots,'' ''The Thorn Birds'' and ''North and South.'' ''If you have a weak actor, it won't be obvious in two hours, but you'll begin to see his weaknesses over four or five days.''

''It's like the difference between speaking Pinter and speaking Shakespeare,'' says Mr. Chamberlain, whose handsome face won him the starring role of the young intern in the ''Dr. Kildare'' television series in 1961. At 53, he seems almost as handsome, Arrow Collar-ad crisp in a button-down white shirt with his long blond hair curling down to his shoulders. ''To speak Shakespeare, you have to sustain huge arcs of poetry. It's a very special knack to keep the ideas clear through a whole soliloquy with qualifying asides and pick up the line again. A 10-hour mini-series is similar. You must keep the overall design in your mind while shooting totally out of sequence.''

Today, starring in a mini-series demands physical stamina as well. Rising production costs and lower network ratings have changed the world of the mini-series actor since Mr. Chamberlain was able to tour Japan on his weekends off from making ''Shogun.''

''A five-day week is unheard of today,'' he says. ''The shows are done in an almost painful way. They get crews for a flat rate, and they work them to death. The hellish schedules are kind of a survival game. You work 14 or 15 hours a day six days a week, and you have to be extremely careful about your health. I can turn any hotel room into a gym in two minutes. I jump around to Aretha Franklin tapes and do pullups on doors. If there is ever a break during the day, I run to the dressing room and take a nap. You learn to sleep shallow and wake up instantly.''

''The Bourne Identity'' was shot this past winter in Nice, London, Paris and Zurich. ''I had four colds, and Richard never even had a toothache,'' Alan Shayne, the executive producer of the mini-series, says admiringly. The actor was even smart enough to dress defensively. ''Zurich in January, shooting at night, is not too hospitable,'' says Mr. Chamberlain. ''I had mountains of electric socks sent over.''

In ''The Bourne Identity,'' Mr. Chamberlain plays his first contemporary role and the first in which he may not be a hero at all. Shot in the head and thrown into the sea, Bourne wakes into a world of terrorists and United States Government agents, all of them shooting at him, and with no memory of his past. Is he Europe's most vicious terrorist? He knows only that he is capable of violence. There are numbered Swiss bank accounts, chases down dark streets and a steamy romance with Jaclyn Smith. Although his television career has been a costumed tour through the centuries, Mr. Chamberlain seems to belong in this paranoid world of 1988 as convincingly as he belonged in feudal Japan, the America frontier and the Australian outback.

He grimaces at being called ''king of the mini-series'' but agrees that his success is not accidental. ''It's such a funny medium, it's quite possible that Robert DeNiro and Jack Nicholson wouldn't make it at all,'' he says. ''An arrogant or intellectual person can't work as the leading character, although arrogance can work wonderfully for a number of parts. I don't mean you should pander to the audience. I never tried to make Bourne likable when he was violent and scared and in his killer mode. But when he takes the character played by Jaclyn hostage and roughs her up, there's a kind of reluctance about it.''

If Bourne isn't always likable, Mr. Chamberlain evidently is. A meditative man who is described by others as ''spiritual,'' he has run the gamut from Rolfing to yoga and even had his own guru, a holistic healer, for half a dozen years. To David Wolper, being ''a pleasant and nice man'' is one of the essentials for a mini-series star.

''You spend months and months filming,'' says Mr. Wolper. ''If you spend six months in northern Siberia, you don't want heartache. For a two-hour movie on a 20-day shooting schedule, it's O.K. to have an actor who's a pain in the neck.''

A random sampling of producers and network executives turns up the names of fewer than half a dozen actors who have proved they are bankable stars in the specialized field of the mini-series: Peter Strauss, Jaclyn Smith, Valerie Bertinelli and, at the top of every list, Richard Chamberlain and Lee Remick.

''We're dealing with intangibles,'' says Christy Welker, vice president for mini-series at ABC. ABC developed ''The Bourne Identity'' because Mr. Chamberlain was interested in playing the title role. ''That was icing on top of the cake,'' Ms. Welker says. ''Richard has the ability to grab the audience's attention and keep it. The more the audience gets to know Richard, the more they like him.''

''You have to like the people you invite into your living room,'' says Susan Baerwald, the vice president for mini-series at NBC, who refuses to make any other generalizations. ''What's fascinating about Richard is that his range is enormous. His ability to be different each time out is what makes him such a valuable property. And once you've received a 50 share for 'Shogun,' the audience is familiar with you.''

Says Stan Margulies, producer of ''The Thorn Birds,'' in which Mr. Chamberlain played a Catholic priest consumed by carnal love, ''Richard didn't get where he is by being lucky. If you run into an early 'Dr. Kildare,' you won't believe it's the same actor. He rarely gets credit for all the risks he took -going to England to train, playing 'Hamlet.' ''

After ''Dr. Kildare'' went off the air in 1966, Mr. Chamberlain, who had felt uncomfortable being considered just another pretty face, turned down other television series in order to learn his craft in summer stock and, a few years later, in British repertory thea-ter. He was the first American actor to play ''Hamlet'' in England since John Barrymore. From his role as the brutal husband of Julie Christie in the 1968 feature film ''Petulia'' to American stage performances as ''Cyrano de Bergerac'' and ''Richard II,'' his reviews were excellent, although there was always a general reluctance to believe that anyone so handsome could be a serious actor. Pretending to be a bewildered critic, Mr. Chamberlain shakes his head with mock surprise. ''I keep getting reviews that say, 'He's really good this time!''

In ruffled shirts and pantaloons, he was ''The Count of Monte Cristo'' and ''The Man in the Iron Mask'' on television and one of ''The Three Musketeers'' in Richard Lester's movie. What he was not, at least in the mind of the author James Clavell, was the hero of ''Shogun.'' Mr. Clavell wanted Sean Connery for the role. Mr. Chamberlain has said he was ''grudgingly'' chosen after Mr. Connery turned it down.

The 10-hour mini-series went on the air in 1980. Its exotic world heightened by the use of Japanese dialogue, ''Shogun'' was wildly successful. It still ranks as the fourth most-watched mini-series. Mr. Chamberlain waited for fame and fortune.

''Nothing happened,'' he says. ''No offers at all. I was stunned. Finally, because I wanted to remodel my house, I took a film in Canada, 'Murder by Phone,' a pretty dumb movie in which you sent electricity through the phone and killed people.''

Since ''The Thorn Birds'' in 1983 confirmed his appeal to television viewers - it earned a 59 percent share of the audience and is second only to ''Roots'' - he has had to fend off offers. Although the star of major theatrical films can command at least a million dollars, even an actor with a track record like Mr. Chamberlain's is not likely to earn more than $700,000 for a four-hour mini-series.

''At last they listen to me,'' he says happily. ''It's a wonderful feeling to be listened to. For a long time, no one did. I would tell the producers of 'Dr. Kildare' that I was sick of doing dumb things and being excessively naive, and I would mark script after script and nothing changed. Needless to say, they didn't listen to me at all.''

Although he turned down six or eight other mini-series after ''The Thorn Birds,'' he did accept the roles of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved 100,000 Jews during World War II, in ''Wallenberg'' and of the American explorer John Charles Fremont in ''Dream West.''

''A mini-series has to seem special,'' he says. ''We were worried about 'Shogun' because so much of it was in Japanese. But it caught on for that very reason. 'Thorn Birds' verged a bit on soap opera, but it was filled with compelling issues, like what withholding love does to people. And the production values were exceptional.''

''The Bourne Identity'' also has top-level production values. Directed by Roger Young, it was photographed by Tony Pierce-Roberts, the Oscar-nominated cinematographer of ''A Room With a View.''

''There's a very odd balance between action, mayhem, suspense, surprise and the love story,'' says Mr. Chamberlain. ''Ludlum's plots are so convoluted and complicated that he's notoriously difficult to translate. You have to simplify cleverly so you don't lose the surprise. You never know until you see it put together, but I think it works.''

To better understand amnesia, Mr. Chamberlain consulted a psychiatrist and discovered that the condition ''is seldom exclusively a mechanical difficulty. More often it is a subconscious choice. The conscious man can't deal with what's going on and takes the first excuse to forget. That helped me to be the character. I felt I knew him.''

Mr. Chamberlain sighs. ''Sometimes I long for the leisure that you have - or I imagine you have - in films,'' he says. ''I do have a third eye trained on features because everyone takes features more seriously. And you never know. Look at Tom Selleck and 'Three Men and a Baby.' In Jason Bourne, I am finally playing a contemporary character. Who knows what producer or director is going to see 'The Bourne Identity' and say, 'By Jove, he'd be a perfect fit.' ''

Meanwhile, Mr. Chamberlain is going to stay home for a while, straddling his houses in Beverly Hills and Hawaii. ''If I never see another hotel room, I'll be happy,'' he says fervently. ''That's been building up for several years. I did 'Blithe Spirit' in New York last year. None of us were quite right for our parts, and Noel Coward isn't the right playright for a long run. His people are fun to spend a night at a dinner party with but not to spend six months with. That was when I started to feel acutely unhappy being away from home.''

His homesickness was not helped by having to trudge around Europe in the dead of winter for ''The Bourne Identity.''

As to the future, Mr. Chamberlain shrugs. He has a series in development at CBS. He would, he says with a smile, play a doctor. And the series would be shot in Hawaii. Right now, he says, he is ''in a bit of a quandary. I'm in one of those churned-up periods. Where will 'The Bourne Identity' lead? I don't lead my life, you know. It leads me.''

For the moment, he is leading himself to his house in Hawaii. He started out to be an artist and he fantasizes taking courses at the University of Hawaii and starting to paint again. Within a week, he will stand in the warm ocean and watch the sunset and wait for the next mini-series to crash across the horizon.

Photos of Richard Chamberlain in ''The Bourne Identity''; in James Michener's ''Centennial''; as an English sailor in James Clavell's ''Shogun''; as a Catholic priest racked by carnal love in ''The Thorn Birds''; as the daring Swedish diplomat in ''Wallenberg: A Hero's Story''; as the American explorer John Charles Fremont in ''Dream West''